Grading Policies

Last updated: February 3, 2011

During the semester, most grades will be given in letter form. Within each assignment or test, each section will be assigned equal weight unless otherwise stated.

To combine letter grades, letters are first converted to numerical scores according to the following conversion table.

A A- AB B+ B B- Etc.
4.0 3.7 3.5 3.3 3.0 2.7

At Boston University, “A” means “excellent,” “B” means “very good.”  There is nothing wrong with a “B!”  (The university does not have official grades of  “AB”, “BC” or “CD”, but otherwise this is consistent with the University’s conversion.)

At the end of the semester, grades will be averaged according to the formula announced for the course. The resulting score is converted to a letter grade as follows.

To obtain an A for the course, your course average must be 3.85 or higher
To obtain an A- for the course, your course average must be 3.7 or higher, but less than 4.0
To obtain an B+ for the course, your course average must be 3.3 or higher, but less than 3.7
etc.

For example, grades A, F, B- average to (4+0+2.7)/3 = 2.23.

Pass/Fail: A “Pass” grade for an assignment or part thereof does not affect the total grade of the assignment group that contains it. For example, grades A, P, B average to (4+3)/2 = 3.5.

Class attendance is mandatory, and significant lack of attendance can result in downgrading from the grade computed above